Within Our Lifetimes
by Mystic25
Summary: She had not intended to run into him at all. Features Amy and Bruce.


"Within Our Lifetimes"

Mystic25

Summary: She had not intended to run into him at all. Features Amy and Bruce.

Rating: T for some references to sexual situations and language

A/N: I didn't know where I was going where I wrote this, I just felt like I had to. I also apologize for any grammatical errors as I beta'd this relatively quickly.

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**xxxxxXxxx**

"_The book of love is long and boring  
And written very long ago  
It's full of flowers and heart-shaped boxes  
And things we're all too young to know."_

**xxxxXxxxx**_  
_

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She did not intend to run into him at all. She was simply having lunch at the outdoor seating of a restaurant, pouring over papers and files half stained with coffee and the grease from the old burger she had two nights ago. She had learned a long time ago to master the art of eating and working at the same time, otherwise she would never eat at all.

She only glanced away from her piles of teetered work stacked pell-mell on the edge of the table when her elbow knocked half of that work to the ground. She of course swore because she didn't have time for shitty accidents and while retrieving the scattered mess of papers, she saw him.

He was walking across the street clouded in steam from the combination of the heat of the cars and the cold of the air. She watched as he crossed the street blocked with cars and pedestrians in equal measure; dressed like he had no particular place to go, but doing so in jeans and a well-tailored looking gray wool sweater.

It had been years, but she still couldn't help the way her eyes tracked him unconsciously; the way he looked like he was frozen in time from their last encounter – head still without even a hint of hair to show the passage of time by graying. He walked with the same purposeful stride she had noticed the second that she had noticed him; crossing the street in a diagonal to the same restaurant that she was sitting at.

She watched him as he raised his hand in the air in her direction and she raised up from trying to gather her paperwork to declare his name out loud in a form of baffled surprise that someone does when meeting up with another person they hadn't seen in years.

But then he said another name, that didn't belong to her, and she turned around to see a figure emerging down the sidewalk behind her, waving back and calling out his name in the absence of her saying it.

She watched as the two of them met where the sidewalk spilled into the café and the expression of all that she was about to say died at the edges of her mouth as they exchanged more than a friendly greeting and moved to claim an empty table a few tables down from her.

A waiter emerged from the dark onion and beer laden air from inside the restaurant, offering them both a smile and two menus poised under his arm. This waiter then pulled out the wrought iron chair for this different woman, and she caught the edges of a shared joke between as that woman two tables across from her moved to sit down in the pre offered chair.

In the silhouette of the woman's turn she watched as her shape grew more pronounced in a swell at her mid-section, half covered up in a black knit tunic length sweater, her noticeably pregnant appearance only offset by a hint of a sparkled band on her fingers as she adjusted the chair closer to the table. She surveyed the menu the waiter had handed it to her reviewing it like it was the Magna Carta while he sat down beside her, resting his elbows on the table, the glint of something gold standing out against the skin on his hand.

There was a mumbled comment that she did not hear from behind a menu as she motioned over to the waiter who had just left their table. He asked her if she needed anything in an over exuberant voice and she shook her head and handed him a stack of cash that would cover her coffee and salad and leave him with an obscene tip. She collected her large mass of papers in one swoop and shoved them in her attaché case, rejecting the offers of the waiter who kept telling her that she would give him change, telling him in a hushed breath to just take the damn money.

She managed to shoo him away from her and began to walk away when the flap on her bag betrayed her by coming open and spilling her work out onto the sidewalk.

And of course he turned at the sound and found her with half of her papers in her hand and half of them coating the sidewalk like loose tiles. And there was only a brief moment of silent inquiry from him that began with: '_Wait, is that-?'_ before he spoke her name out loud.

"_Zola?" _

She gathered up the fallen papers she could reach within a hand span and stood up like a half exasperated child who had found out her hide-and-seek location had been made.

"Bruce-" she slid the papers she had gathered into her bag and closed it up in an overly precise 'click' of the metallic snap. She forwent merely looking at him and walked over to where he was instead, lips pursed ever so slightly like she was prepping for battle.

"Hi." She stood in the shadow of his table's umbrella, watching as the expression on his face undergo metamorphosis into various shades of bafflement.

A laughter laced syllable caught its way in his throat as he repeated her greeting. "It's been a while-"

"So how are you?"

The '_I can see that it has'_ that was about emerge from her mouth was interrupted by that one question, and had her turning to the form of Amy Gray who resided in the seat next to Bruce's, who's rings Zola didn't have to ask him about to know that Amy wore on her finger.

"I can't complain about the inroads I have made about my career; though in the personal department, I'm probably not doing as well as you."

Her remark hung in the air like a ream of cotton on a barbed wire fence and she watched the former Judge Gray's face shift into a brief moment of not knowing whether to be hurt by the remark or whether to own to it. But like she said, Amy was a former Judge so she already knew what Amy's response should be, so she cut her off.

"I'm sorry," she smiled back in a balming manner, aware that her mouth had gotten away from her, like it tended to do because she wasn't a passive woman. "I've been working 24 hour days for nearly two weeks now, what I meant was – I think it's great."

And she caught the returning look on Amy's face that silently said '_do you really?'_ because Amy wasn't a passive woman either; but heard her response of: "Thank you."

"How far along are you?" She asked a question worthy of being spoken in her grandmother's voice over her quilting circle.

"Almost 30 weeks," Amy responded, staring down at the evidence of her statement before casting a sidelong glance at Bruce. "A fact that I am constantly reminded of each time Bruce tears off another page from his desk calendar in exuberant glee."

"A fact that _I'm_ also constantly reminded of, Baby, each time I remember I haven't had to do any of this in 14 years," Bruce volleyed back to Amy.

"Yeah well you and me both pal, so go preach somewhere else." Amy returned to him.

She watched the moment of quiet laughter shared between them as the sound of Bruce's endearment of 'baby' to Amy still rung in her ears. They behaved in a manner more relaxed than she had ever seen them, not hiding under any false pretenses or denials, instead wearing it all out in publically plain view.

"So Rebecca is-?" There was no way around the reality that sat right in front of her, only half spoken follow up questions to it.

"A teenager," Bruce tells her, watching her absorb the information that always came when you realized that the passage of time has escaped you. "Which means she forms factions with other teenagers to play God with my sanity, but other than that she's perfect."

She allowed herself one note of escaped laughter, recalling the ten-year-old that she met behind Bruce's door, who even then had overtly expressed opinions. "Then she's obviously still your daughter."

The moment continued when Bruce acknowledged their shared past with a smile, which allowed her bravery to continue. "And how about your daughter Judge—_Amy-_" she corrected the slip. "Lauren, isn't it?_"_

"She's a part of Rebecca's faction," Amy answered in this manner, "they stage hostile takeovers on a daily basis so life is never boring."

She heard as her moment shattered like glass on marble floors as she remembered that they all lived together as a family, and because of the condition that Amy was in, would be a _blood_ related family in three months and counting.

"See, I told you that you'd lose the bet on that six month time table." The words escape her mouth and she watched the alchemy that it did to his expression.

"Zola-" her name escaped his mouth and a look moves from Amy's eyes to his.

And the worst part of Amy's look was that it wasn't one of jealously, or peacocking, it was pebbles of genuine understanding beginning to form about the meaning of where each of them stood.

She looked down at her watch whose battery had died this morning causing her to nearly miss half the appointments she had rescheduled for Saturday because her week had ran 78 hours long. "I wish I could catch up more on old times with you two, but the State Supreme Court waits for no attorney who fights in its arena the way I do." She felt herself smiling at them both in a way that she knew neither of them would buy. "Congratulations on everything, both of you."

"Good luck on your cases."

She returned Amy's words with another smile that pretended to be happy, daring to lay a light hand on Bruce's shoulder, and the moment stung more when Bruce and Amy both seemed to understand why she needed to do so.

She said one last "bye" half whispered before she left them sitting there, watching her go.

**xxxxXxxx**

She sat half watching the old monster movie on the television a bowl of popcorn tucked neatly in the grove her stomach made between itself and the sofa; the overtly loud noise of Becca and Lauren's sleepover going on one floor above.

Amy dug the remote out from where it had gotten lost behind the popcorn bowl and turned the volume up on the television just one bar underneath its loudest setting, hoping that the sounds of Godzilla eating half of Tokyo was strong enough to drown out the laughter of six 14-year-old-girls.

The noise level grew to a decibel louder than a jet engine and the sounds of some teenage pop princess screeching out angst filled lyrics over a synthesized drum beat poured down the stairs.

"Just try not to break anything with the volume okay ladies?"

Amy heard as Bruce's words were met with an audible: '_dad!'_ from Becca and an exclamation to '_please shut the door!'_ from Lauren before the noise level was somewhat sealed off behind the painted wooden door.

Bruce's footsteps echoed softly down each of the carpeted level of stairs that led to the living room. She picked up a stemmed glass half filled with red Merlot from beside her on the end table and held it out. "How's it going up there?"

Bruce took the glass from her hand. "We're going to need to replaster the walls in the morning." He took a healthy hit from the glass and dropped into the vacant spot next to his wife on the sofa.

"As long as no one's bleeding or trying to pierce anything-" Amy sipped from her the mug of cocoa in her free hand. "You're the one who said you could handle an all girl's slumber party,"

"I lied," Bruce corrected. "I thought it might work as a moment of practice considering I'm about to _live_ in an all girl's slumber party." He cast a glance to her pregnant belly.

Amy offered him a bit of an apologetic smile. "It's not like you were exactly blindsided given both our gender track record with kids Bruce."

"My point still stands Judge Gray-" Bruce returned, using the name he used that got them in this situation in the first place, which also involved judicial role play and Amy's mother accidentally walking it on them; it became a family joke for a good solid month.

Bruce laughed at her for a good minute while Amy went stone faced at the reminder of being caught in her bedroom by her mom at her nephew's Walt's birthday party when she brought the boy upstairs to search for more birthday presents and found a different kind of surprise instead, but after a moment her resolve melted.

"I have to say I have never been so thoroughly debriefed before that night-" her voice dissolved fully into a snorted bit of laughter that had her setting her mug down on the end table before she shattered it and bringing a hand up to her nose to catch the noise before their neighbors called the police on them for breaking ordinance laws.

Bruce heard his wife's snorted laughter and he echoed the noise. This continued on for another full minute before the sound of Amy's laughter died and the mirth on her face fizzed out like a blown out candle and was replaced by a look that went somewhere else.

Bruce sobered at her expression. "What is it?" He dipped his head down more to her when she didn't answer him. "Are you alright?"

Amy's expression came back into the room and moved to his. "Did you ever think about Zola before we saw her again today?"

Bruce let out a breath that he didn't realize he had been holding.

"Because I haven't," Amy shifted herself around so that she was facing him fully, drawing one of her pajama clad legs up underneath her body. "But after this afternoon, I haven't been able to stop."

"Zola, is in my _past_," Bruce insisted in a simple understanding fashion.

"Your past is a _part_ of you Bruce," Amy said. "You carry it around with you everywhere you go like a suitcase. The people you love fit inside of it, and that includes Zola."

"I never loved Zola, Amy-" Bruce interjected in a quiet voice so that the girls wouldn't hear their conversation.

"A part of you did once," Amy stated just as quietly watching Bruce sigh a bit in frustration at her words. "And I'm not saying that that's the case now; I'm _saying,_ that she still knows it."

"So what? Do you want me to go track down Zola and _apologize_ for loving you?" Bruce asked, his voice raised just slightly. "Like the way those girls upstairs are doing to the prepubescent boys they scribble the names of in notebooks?"

Amy dropped her head down and ran a frustrated hand through her mass of curled hair. "I don't know what I want Bruce, but I know what I _don't_ want-" she raised her head back up to his. "Having to feel guilty for the way you and I ended up."

Once it was said, the words bounded in the room like the verdicts Amy used to issue in her courtroom to the waiting parties and their lawyers. It left them both watching each other in the aftermath.

"You know that means the same thing," Bruce said to her in a light tease, frustration began to drip away like melting ice; "Knowing what you want, and knowing what you don't want-"

"_Bruce-"_Amy shook her head in frustration this time, not in the mood for his jokes.

Bruce reached out his hand to cover it over hers, his eyes holding hers. "You don't want to feel guilty for the way we ended up –then don't."

Amy stared at him long and hard, an expression playing across her face caught between too many deep emotions to name. She shifted herself forward and gave him a kiss full of warm breath, which he returned with his fingers in her curls. They pulled back and she drew herself down next to him. Bruce raised his arm to allow her more room, drawing the quilt she had been under up over them both as they half stared at the movie on TV lying next to each other.

**xxxxXxxx**

"_And I  
I love it when you give me things  
And you  
You ought to give me wedding rings  
You ought to give me wedding rings."_

**xxxxXxxx**_  
_

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End.

The lyrics at the beginning are from the "Book of Love" by Peter Gabriel.

R/R please_  
_


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